


Sixth Chance

by sadlonelyyogurt



Category: Lab Rats (TV 2012)
Genre: Androids, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parenting, Character Study, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, M/M, a little gay, kind of, marcus isnt really evil, redemption for douggie and his android son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22834654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlonelyyogurt/pseuds/sadlonelyyogurt
Summary: Douglas had five children over the course of his life, and he’d failed every one of them. Adam, Bree and Chase were only ever meant to be soldiers, and it wasn’t exactly like he’d been there for them most of their lives. Their true father was Donald. Daniel, too, while Douglas had stepped up eventually he hadn’t been there for the kid when it really mattered.And then there was Marcus.
Relationships: (one sided), Chase Davenport/Marcus Davenport, Douglas Davenport & Marcus Davenport
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	Sixth Chance

**Author's Note:**

> I have to stop myself from writing anymore outsiders fanfictions and also I just started watching Lab Rats again cuz…... ya know…... childhood…...
> 
> And so then I said fuck it and wrote this but since no one actually cares about the origin story of this I’ll just kindly shut the fuck up and let you read it.

Adam and Leo were off on the Island, dealing with the aftermath of the whole Giselle thing. Bree, Chase and Donald had gone off on some exciting top secret super-bionic mission, and Douglas was honestly done with the whole “Bionic Island” thing. So he went to the Davenport mansion.

Tasha was nice enough to cook for him (even if her food was always lightly charred), and get to know him over dinner, but she was still quite wary of him and Douglas really couldn’t blame her. He spent most of his time in the lab, tinkering with little odds and ends and often glancing over at the pile of melted metal on the floor no one had bothered to clean up.

When he’d suggested rebuilding Marcus, he’d gotten a hard _no_ . But the more Douglas thought about it, the more he didn’t care what the others thought. They’d all left him to go off on their own little adventures and so what did it matter?

Douglas had five children over the course of his life, and he’d failed every one of them. Adam, Bree and Chase were only ever meant to be soldiers, and it wasn’t exactly like he’d been there for them most of their lives. Their true father was Donald. Daniel, too, while Douglas had stepped up eventually he hadn’t been there for the kid when it _really_ mattered.

And then there was Marcus.

Marcus was a soldier and a weapon and he was very, truly _evil_ , but he was also a kid. Douglas had programmed him to defeat Donald and get back the bionic siblings, but there was so much more to Marcus that the other side of the Davenport family never got to see. He really did love playing guitar and he was an amazing singer. He was too shy to try out for the musical but Douglas could see that he really wanted to. He loved pizza and the Terminator movies scared him shitless.

And there was Chase, of course. How Marcus had liked him. _Really, really_ liked him and Douglas had no idea what he was supposed to do about it.

First of all there was the fact that Chase was technically like his adopted-brother-cousin-somethingorwhatever. And also the small, insignificant part where Marcus was supposed to kill Chase’s father and then watch as Chase and his siblings were taken over by the Triton app. And Marcus understood this, of course. His programming would force him to do it, would make him _want_ to do it, but _Marcus_ , the part of him that was sentient, that was very nearly human, didn’t want to do it at all. Back then, Douglas pushed this fact out of his mind. But all those years later and he felt terrible for everything he did to that poor boy, especially including leaving him to die under a pile of rubble.

So late at night, after Tasha had gone to bed and Douglas was left alone only with the thrum of machinery around him, he got to work. He almost missed Eddie, because the basement was lonely and honestly kind of creepy at times. But there were things in there, little pieces of the Davenport’s life that Douglas would sometimes find and they would make him smile and make him sad that he missed all those years with his family.

He spent days in a state of mindless obsession, turning down Tasha’s burnt dinners and instead focusing on what he needed to do to make things right. It occurred to him at some point that maybe he wasn’t really making things _right_ , maybe this was just a way to ease his guilty conscience. But Douglas was no hero, he wasn’t Leo or Adam or Bree or Chase or even Donald. He didn’t need to think about all the ways his mind had been fucked over, how that was probably what had led to this obsession with rebuilding his son. So he worked, he designed and he tinkered, until finally the robot whirred to life.

He hadn’t been able to restore any of Marcus’s original hardware after it had been melted into a puddle, but Douglas was nothing if not a genius. He’d stored all of Marcus’s plans for safekeeping in case he one day needed them again, and boy was he glad. He’d taken away any bionics or special abilities Marcus might have had and replaced his mission to kill Donald and apprehend the bionic siblings with the ability to learn and grow as a human would. Turns out, taking away all those weapons and armor added another twenty years or so onto his life. This time, Douglas would be able to get him a car for his sixteenth birthday. 

“Dad?” Marcus said, opening his eyes, and Douglas was taken back to all those years ago when Marcus had done this for the first time. Except now, Douglas wouldn’t tell Marcus all he had in store for him. He wouldn’t explain his evil plan and Marcus wouldn’t leap off the bed, ready to fight. 

Instead, he put a hand on his boy’s shoulder. “It’s me, son.”

He was going to be in serious trouble with Donald. The rest of the team wasn’t going to trust the face that tried to kill them multiple times, not at first. But they’d come to trust Douglas, and they would trust Marcus, too. Douglas would shield him from their bionic abilities because he never wanted another child of his to have to live through that again. Marcus would live a normal life, a happy life, one without supernatural abilities or crazy, world threatening catastrophes, none of it.

Douglas hadn’t been there for his other children, and they’d grown up too fast. They’d felt the weight of the world pressing down on them and they’d shouldered it. But Marcus wouldn’t be like them. Marcus would feel the weight of the world on his shoulders and he’s see Douglas, his father, right there alongside him, helping him hold it up. 

Marcus would lead the life that he chose, a life that wasn’t forced upon him by someone else. Marcus was going to be happy, he was going to be _free_ , and Douglas knew that this was what he’d needed all along.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [In Hindsight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24086611) by [Flowergirl2201](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowergirl2201/pseuds/Flowergirl2201)




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